


Where Would You Like To Go First?

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26951155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Charley Pollard steps inside the TARDIS for the first time and sees the universe in front of her very eyes.
Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Where Would You Like To Go First?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this artwork  
> https://johannesviii.tumblr.com/post/183295776859/another-headcanon-with-eight-and-charley

Charlotte Pollard had thought the R101 was big the first time she had seen it. And it was, by her standards, certainly, the biggest transport she had ever seen, ready to whisk her away to Singapore on the other side of the world. Yet this man, the strange Doctor, had calmly strolled his way into her life, coat flying behind him, turned absolutely everything on its head and casually offered her his hand as he left it all behind. The ship he had shown her was smaller, so much smaller, barely big enough to fit a person inside it, and yet once she did get inside it didn’t seem to end. Charley had thought the R101 was big the first time she had seen it, but this TARDIS might as well be an entirely new world.

The Doctor stood in the centre of the main room, illuminated by light that was barely there, but Charley could see plenty. The room looked like it had been intentionally painted and lit to look like she wasn’t supposed to be able to see, in dark, gothic colours, and yet the walls radiated a warmth like a fire on the other side of the room, but somehow from every direction. Even the humming walls that should have been disconcerting felt comforting in a way that Charley didn’t realise she had missed since leaving her family’s home, but now felt an itch of nostalgia being scratched despite having never set foot inside the craft before.

She walked slowly to the centre of the room, a strange object in a glass column rising and falling directly in the centre, surrounded by a panel of strange looking instruments and endless buttons and levers and dials that she was sure did something, but looked like it would take a person’s entire lifetime just to find out what each one did, much less memorise the order. The Doctor watched her approach, a welcoming smile that betrayed the slightest hint of self-satisfaction. Not in an irritating or smug way, Charley thought to herself, but this was someone who was clearly enjoying how much Charley couldn’t hide how impressed she was.

“All right,” he said, turning to the dials and controls with an excited glint in his eyes that were human, so very human, and yet somehow much deeper than any eyes she had seen before, even in men so much older and more experienced than the Doctor appeared to be. “Where would you like to go first, Charley? Any ideas?”

Anywhere in time and space. That was what he had promised, and what she had seen of him, she believed it. Anywhere in time and space. Everywhere she could ever want to go and so very much more at her very fingertips. She drew a breath and opened her mouth to make a request.

“...”

Then she closed it again as she drew up a complete blank in her mind. Anywhere in time and space. Anywhere. But she could not think of a single place. So many places she had always wanted to see and never could. Now she could, and she wanted to, but how could she possibly comprehend where to start?

“I’m sorry Doctor, but...” Charley was genuinely somewhat disappointed in herself. The Edwardian Adventuress, holding a ticket to everywhere, and she didn’t know where to go. “I have absolutely no idea. You said this “TARDIS” could travel through all of time and space, and I’m trying to work out what I’d like to see…”

She trailed off, embarrassed, but before she could turn away she met the Doctor’s eyes and saw a stunning lack of judgement. She expected him to be disappointed, a fellow traveller, a kindred spirit with no idea where to go, but he seemed accepting of the idea, but not expectant. Like he suddenly realised at the exact same time as she had just how overwhelming she was going to find the concept and understood with no problems. Some of the embarrassment dissolved as she finished her sentence.

“To be honest, I’m a bit lost,” she said, adding a slight laugh to the sentence as if to downplay just how out of her depth she was. She doubted it worked, but she didn’t mind.

The Doctor frowned at that, and for just a second Charley was worried she had genuinely upset him, but the Doctor’s mouth moved away from upset and towards concentration instead. He suddenly sprang from where he was standing and dashed around behind Charley, reaching around and pressing a few buttons in front of her she hadn’t even noticed were there.

“You know, I think I have an idea,” he said, and the slightly mad glee was back in his tone and expression.

The ship lurched a little and Charley clung onto the console to keep her balance. The device in the column started to rise higher and fall further, moving faster and faster as the ship levelled off, the lurch corrected itself, but she could still feel the ship all around her moving. Just a few seconds after it had, it came to a stop again, although this maneuver was much smoother than the start.

The Doctor looked into Charley’s eyes, flashed a cheeky wink, and pressed another button without looking. The ceiling retracted and Charley thought for a second that the ship itself was opening up, but realised it was just a window opening in the top of the ship somehow. As the ceiling drew back the room was bathed in the purest blue light and Charley saw an infinite blackness, punctuated by uncountable tiny shining stars, and as the window was fully revealed, the centrepiece of the Doctor’s showcase came into view: a green and blue planet hanging in the middle of the void, a jewel in space, the source of the blue light. Charley’s mouth fell open and she didn’t even care how undignified it must have looked.

“Is this the Earth?” she asked, astounded by the spectacle. “It’s so blue!” 

The Doctor nodded and beamed at Charley as the entire world, that she had dreamed of exploring her whole life, lay in front of her, smaller than she could ever have conceived seeing the world, and yet bigger and deeper and more alive than she had ever realised in her time living on it.

“And if I do this -” the Doctor boasted, pressing another few buttons and the Earth sped away as the stars moved around Charlotte Pollard, more jewels coming into view, a red one, then orange, then white, then another blue, more than Charley had ever dreamed of seeing as the TARDIS slowed down and came to a stop. “- you can see a bit more of the solar system.”

Charley stood, not even caring about the slowly growing ache in her neck as she craned her head upwards. This was worth it. Everywhere she could ever want to go and so very much more at her very fingertips.

A million questions rushed through her mind and every single one of them came out unbidden as a manic string of overjoyed questions: “what is that big planet over there? Is that Jupiter? What is the moon made of? Are there really rivers on Mars? I read somewhere that there was a jungle on Venus? What’s beyond the solar system? Oooh, can we see other planets? How many inhabited ones?”

The Doctor laughed, and Charley only stopped asking questions long enough to take a much needed breath before she fell over from the excitement, the raw possibility racing through her mind. She beamed at the Doctor.

“I want to see everything!”


End file.
